THE ELEMENT OF TIME; ANCIENT ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCE
A cycle or counting system which repeats over and over, especially in vast stretches, can give the illusion of linear time. Our 12 month calendar is the Gregorian (Pope Gregory XII, 1582) version that updated one that Julius Caesar created. Today our keeping of time is not in tune with nature's cycles and distorts our ability to see the natural patterns that indigenous cultures embraced as the foundation of their lives. Our calendar is designed for the work week and material production, rather than cyclical - cycles of the sun, moon, stars.
The moon was the first calendar and cycle of measure which includes sequencing of the tides of the sea and the cycles of fertile woman. Early Egyptian culture and cultures of Mesoamerica, such as the Maya were brilliant mathematicians and time charters who noticed great power in the structuing of the night sky. The Maya organized time by the most accurate numerical system, that include "short counts" and “long counts”, to measure solar years over thousands of years.
With the completion of natural cycles, many things come to an end and many things begin new. Just like our four seasons--the birth of spring, the maturity of summer, the growing old of fall and the dying of winter contribute to a repeating cycle of rebirth-- we can imagine that there are changes that occur within earth’s geology that create balance within the changing “solar seasons”.
Whether you review this concept in depth, taking it literally or metaphorically, is up to you. As an artist, I am drawn to the idea of “large seasons” that adhere to the universal laws of nature and have chosen to acknowledge this time of transition as we complete cycles--perfect circles.
Today, ancient calendars are exciting to study due to the fact that time has been charted up to our current generation. The Mayan calendar, found in inscriptions on temples, charted “the beginning of time” to the “end of time”, (winter soltice 12-21-2012, though a transition could be a decades as opposed to a sudden moment) as a completion of a 25,000 year solar cycle where our Milky Way has journeyed around our sun. When studying the "end" of time or "ending of this current cycle" from our ancient ancestors many speak of the future evolution of humanity; a periodic renewal and balancing of the cosmic order. A few descriptions are:
a time when knowledge is revealed
the perception of linear time ends
material structures change
attachment to the material ends
that which was credible is no longer
that which was thought to be of value is not
fusion of dualities
converging of cultural traditions
a new race
to name but a few.............

As Joseph Campbell wrote: "The world, as we know it, is coming to an end. The world as the center of the universe, the world divided from the heavens, the world bound by horizons in which love is reserved for the members of the in group: that is the world that is passing away. Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end."